COMMERCIALS NEWS

Curious animation

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:37

Saatchi & Saatchi Cape Town developed an animated short film to introduce Executive Education, a sub-brand of the UCT Graduate School of Business (GSB), by showing how curiosity grows with new discoveries and in return rewards one. The film was released in cinemas at the end of September.

Creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi Cape Town Sammy-Jane Thom says that Saatchi’s brief was to create a piece that would be used as a sales aid to introduce potential delegates, who are corporate executives, to the institution’s way of thinking. The piece needed to be used as a stand-alone in media that supports formats of more than 60 seconds duration, such as the Internet and cinema.

Executive Education seeks to promote agility of thought through the premise that questions change the world, not answers. It is with a curious mind that new worlds open.

Thom says that Saatchi & Saatchi wanted to break the mould on traditional audio visuals. “We wanted to create something that would leave viewers thinking, contemplating and inspired to explore. Our audio visual had to offer an alternative headspace to this audience, so that they would be receptive to the school’s offering. So we decided to go the route of animation, which allowed us to explore the world of metaphor.

“Our objective was to get this type of thinking across in an emotive yet entertaining way and that took the viewer on a journey. We did this by showing an average 40-year old executive walking in a cityscape with a strange companion, a creature, which represents his curiosity. With each exploration his ‘curiosity creature’ evolves in size and colour, with more adventure and new worlds opening up to the two of them. The animation culminates in a magical end scene where the man is rewarded by his curiosity.”

Thom continues, “It was really important that we collaborated with suppliers that would help realise our objective”.

The animation by Conduit brought the story to life, paying exceptional attention to detail and colouring the film with a fresh hand-painted technique. The sound design by Soft light City truly captured the essence of “curiosity” – creating a balance between intrigue and warmth, with outstanding attention to sound effects for the alternative worlds.

“We are very proud of the end-product which took four months to achieve and believe that the animation awakens the desire that lies within each of us to explore, discover and try new things.”